


No Way Out Of This

by ButcherOfBlackwater



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, M/M, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24818239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButcherOfBlackwater/pseuds/ButcherOfBlackwater
Summary: Elya had one goal in life, to avenge her family. She never planned for anything after that. She certainly didn’t plan on becoming a soldier again, fighting alongside fellow metahuman criminals, and nothing in her life had ever prepared her for Colonel Rick Flag. / Suicide Squad Rewrite & Expansion
Relationships: Chato Santana & Tatsu Yamashiro, Floyd Lawton/Harleen Quinzel, George "Digger" Harkness/GQ Edwards, Rick Flag/Original Female Character(s), Waylon Jones/June Moone
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. There’s A Hole In My Chest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I am not the biggest DC fan, I did actually enjoy Suicide Squad even with all of its problems. The team was so interesting, so this is my way of exploring team dynamics with metahuman criminals and a little bit of romance sprinkled throughout. There will be changes to the movie, and I’ll be writing past that as well. This is mostly just me having fun. The OC is based off the MCU’s Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, because I love Wanda in the MCU but didn’t want to write a crossover. Her abilities aren’t the same, but her appearance is.

**15 JUNE 2016**

**WALLER**

“Ten minutes away,” Flag reported without prompting. Amanda Waller hummed in place of an answer and smiled internally when she saw the clench of the Colonel’s jaw without showing any outward amusement. She was sitting in the back of the SUV while Flag drove, and she knew how much he hated having to act the part of her chauffer. He was an elite soldier that had been reduced to her assistant, for the time being.

If things went as planned, Flag would soon be too busy to drive her around. For now though, she was going to enjoy his anger. She knew what she was doing was petty, knew and didn’t care, because Flag hadn’t followed her expectations. After finding Doctor June Moone and taking her in, along with the metahuman that resided inside of the mild-mannered doctor, she had assigned the woman’s care to Flag. Flag’s hero complex never kicked in and the soldier instead regarded the doctor with contempt, which only served to make the already anxious woman even more skittish. She’d had to distance them and put herself into the situation, which was something that she had wanted to avoid. She didn’t have the time to coddle the possessed woman, and yet she spent too much of her precious time acting as a surrogate mother for Moone. Flag had went against her expectations, and this was his petty punishment.

The SUV turned a corner, and the bag at her feet pushed against her leg. Amanda pulled her bag onto her lap and thought about the files inside. Doctor Moone’s file was there, along with Colonel Flag’s and several more. While the SUV continued towards her destination, she went over the list of names. Floyd Lawton, _Deadshot_ , expert marksman and contract killer. Harleen Quinzel, _Harley Quinn_ , brilliant psychiatrist turned crazed villain. Digger Harkness, _Captain Boomerang_ , master thief. Chato Santana, _El Diablo_ , with an unknown limit of his fiery abilities. Waylon Jones, _Killer Croc_ , a man who became the monster that everyone believed he was. Those were the files that she would be presenting, and she would save the big two for last. June Moone, _Enchantress_ , a witch with an external heart in Waller’s hand. Rick Flag, _Colonel_ , probably the only person capable of keeping the metahuman criminals in line.

Then, of course, there were the two files that she was going to be holding back. Rick’s second-in-command was a woman with near metahuman abilities, but she wasn’t a criminal and locked up like the rest of them. Tatsu Yamashiro, _Katana_ , was already on their side and didn’t need to be brought up tonight. The other was being omitted because of her colorful history with the military. Eleanora Belikov, _Red Phoenix_ , entered the military at eighteen as Elinor Bell and was an exemplary soldier for six years. After her honorable discharge from the military, she went after the ex-military mercenaries that killed her parents and then continued on killing corrupt military officials until she was captured by Flag. She would make a great asset, but she wasn’t going to tell any government officials about Sergeant Bell’s forced participation.

“We’re here.”

**02 JULY 2016**

**FLAG**

“You’ll be safe here until we get back,” Flag overheard as he waited outside of the hotel room. Waller was inside with Moone, talking in a soothing tone that she didn’t use with anyone else, and the fake sound made his skin itch. Waller wasn’t the type of person to soothe, to comfort, but he knew that she did it as a way to control the young doctor. At least he wasn’t the one in there, like Waller had wanted. He felt sorry for the young woman, but the thing inside of her put him on edge. The woman herself was afraid of her own shadow and showed no confidence at being able to control the metahuman possessing her, which was why he had kept his distance from Doctor Moone and why Waller had pulled him from looking after her.

“Will you be safe?” Moone’s voice was a whisper, but he was posted right outside the door and could hear clearly. The doctor was obviously worried about Waller’s safety, and that worry showed that the doctor didn’t really know who Waller was.

The two women talked quietly for a few more minutes, and he saw the tight expression on Waller’s face as she walked out into the hallway. The hotel door closed behind her, and he waited for Waller to start walking before falling into step just behind her. She was already looking down at her phone, so he kept his eyes straight ahead and then he was the one who pushed the button for the elevator. Waller barked commands into her phone during the ride down and was cursing under her breath as they crossed the hotel lobby, and he slipped his sunglasses on as they stepped out into the summer Louisiana heat. He hated the humidity down here, could already feel his shirt starting to cling to his back, and his teeth ground together as he held open the back door of the SUV for Waller. She slid inside, he closed the door, and he moved to sit behind the wheel.

It was quiet as they drove away from civilization and towards the prison, and he watched his knuckles pop white as his hands tightened around the wheel. This was a bad idea. Recruiting criminals for some kind of task force was guaranteed to fail, but Waller was determined to see her idea through. Since he was tasked with keeping them in line, he had access to their files and had carefully went over every little detail. None of them were the type to follow orders, to work with a team, and none of them were trustworthy. Especially not the last name that he had checked over. Not that he had needed to read the last file, because he was the one who had brought her in. Eleanora Belikov had proved that she could follow orders and work with a team, but she’d done it all with a false name and a hidden agenda that made her the most untrustworthy of them all.

By the time he pulled up to the prison and made it through the front gates, he was already waiting for it to be over. As he and Waller moved through the prison, his anger rose notch by notch. The guards got on his nerves, because the only thing stronger than their disdain for the prisoners was their fear of them. He watched on a monitor as Waller talked to Harley Quinn, and he wasn’t fooled by the woman’s wide-eyed stare or quiet riddles. He went down to talk to Croc on his own, wanted to look at the monster that Waller had told him about, but he was just a man who chose to live in a sewer. Santana refused them outright and was nothing like the man they had video footage of, and he didn’t realize that he wasn’t going to have a choice. Watching Lawton had been right on the edge of entertaining but had mostly been annoying, and he had watched Lawton get dragged back towards his cell with a faint smile.

“That’s all of them. Harkness and Weiss are still waiting to be transferred,” Waller said once Lawton was out of sight. Griggs was the only guard left behind, and Rick noticed the slight easing of the man’s shoulders. Griggs was relieved, because he thought they were leaving.

“I want to see her.” He said the words slowly and carefully as he turned to look at Waller, and he caught the quick look on her face. _Curiosity_.

“Can I trust you not to kill her?” Waller asked him.

“I won’t harm her,” he promised. Waller held his eyes, like she was testing his words, before turning her sharp eyes on Griggs.

“Take Colonel Flag to Belikov,” Waller commanded.

“She’s in lockdown.” When Waller and he both just continued to look at him, Griggs shifted nervously and crossed his arms over his chest. “She killed one of my guys last month. Been strapped down ever since.”

“Can she talk?” Rick asked.

“Well, yeah,” Griggs answered with obvious confusion.

“Then take me to her,” he commanded this time. Griggs still looked confused and possibly even more nervous, but he nodded jerkily and then started leading the way back inside the prison. Waller walked next to Griggs while Rick stayed a few steps behind, and he listened to them talk like he wasn’t within hearing range.

“Why does he want to see her so bad?” Griggs whispered. When Waller answered, she didn’t bother with lowering her voice.

“Colonel Flag and his team are the ones who brought her in.” Waller paused to look over her shoulder, and he kept his face passive as she slowly looked him over. “Well, I guess I should say that it took Colonel Flag’s team to bring her in since he was the only survivor.”

He’d been told that a six man team was all that was needed to bring her in, but she’d clearly been underestimated. Eleanora was the daughter of a retired mafia boss, and her name had been changed when the family’s maid escaped the slaughter of the Belikov family with the five year old. As Elinor Bell, she joined the Army and learned everything that she needed to know to take out mercenaries with military training. She killed the men who had killed her family, but she hadn’t stopped there. When she went after higher-ranking military officials, corrupt or not, he’d been sent after her. His team hadn’t been prepared for her, because no one knew that she was a metahuman. He’d watched as she burned through his men and had barely managed not to be burned alive by her, and he hated the thought of her ever being able to leave this miserable hole that she’d been tossed into.

“She’s right inside. Whatever you do, don’t remove any of her restraints,” Griggs said as he started unlocking a door. The metal creaked as it was pulled open, and Griggs and Waller stayed outside as he stepped into the small windowless room.

The light inside was dull, the air was stale, and the cell was practically empty. There was a cot to his left, where her small form was strapped down. There was a sink and a toilet on the right side of the room, which meant they had to let her up sometimes. As for Belikov herself, she looked smaller than he remembered. Made sense, if she’d been strapped down like this for the past month. The orange clothes on her were baggy and loose, and he could see pale strips of skin along her sides and above her ankles. Thick cuffs were locked around her ankles and wrists with another band wrapped around her middle, but his eyes were drawn to her face. Her hair was longer, the brown color he remembered looked darker due to grease from going unwashed, and a metal band was wrapped around her head to hide her eyes.

“You’re not Griggs, he never shuts up. You’re not Adamson, because he shoots a dart first.” Her voice was flat, the slight accent he’d first heard was missing, but he still knew that voice.

“Sergeant,” he greeted. The single word was all she needed to recognize him, and he watched as her face slowly shifted into a wide smile. As she tried to stretch against her bindings, her head tipped back and showed off the thick metal collar around her throat.

“I’ve missed you, _solnyshko_. What took you so long to visit?” she asked in the voice that he remembered. The accent was back, curling around her words, and he slowly knelt down until he was nearly kneeling next to the cot.

“Wanted to wait to see you just like this,” he said quietly. He knew that Waller and Griggs could still hear him, but he wanted the illusion of a private conversation.

“All tied up?” she asked with a smile.

“Beaten down,” he clarified. Because now that he was closer, he could see it. Dark bruises ringed her wrists, probably her ankles too, and the skin under the band around her eyes was bruised as well. Her lips were cracked and raw, she’d lost some muscle tone, and he could tell that she was slowly wasting away. It was what she deserved, for all of the people that she had killed.

“You think I’m beaten? You think this is all that it takes to break me? You think that little of me?” With every question, she pulled at the cuffs restraining her. He could hear the cot creaking as she struggled, and he remembered the sound of her laugh as she laid bleeding on the floor. He wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her again.

“If I had it my way, you’d be buried under this prison,” he told her. She relaxed against the cot and stopped straining, and her smile looked almost soft as her head turned in his direction. He knew that she couldn’t see him, not through the metal over her eyes, but he remembered the red glow of her eyes.

“I do not fear death. Your words are a comfort, not a threat,” she said quietly. Then she hummed and lifted her head, like she was searching for his gaze. “Go ahead, _solnyshko_ , set me free.”

“I hope I’m the one that gets to put you down, I really do,” he whispered and leaned closer. She was still smiling, and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that she could see him. “You don’t get to die yet, sergeant. Your country needs you.”

“Is that why you are here, colonel? Want me to be a good little soldier again?” she asked sweetly. She was on active duty for six years, was an excellent soldier with accommodations, but all of that had been a mean to an end. She couldn’t be trusted, but he knew that Waller didn’t care.

“I want you to stay right here, strapped in until there’s nothing left of you, but there’s someone that wants to use what you learned from your undercover years.” He let his distaste color his words, and he listened as she hummed quietly in thought.

“This someone? Are they listening?” she asked him. He looked to the side, and Waller was standing in the doorway and watching them with a carefully blank expression.

“They’re listening,” he said and turned to look at her again.

“I’ll do whatever you want, if you take this off my eyes and let me walk around a little. I can’t be an effective soldier with my muscles atrophied,” she said louder. He could hear Griggs scoffing and the sound of the man’s boots shuffling against the concrete floor, probably from nerves, and he already knew that Waller was going to agree because Belikov had a point.

“That can be arranged,” Waller said and confirmed his thoughts. Belikov’s smile widened as Waller asked Griggs how to remove the band from her eyes, and he was aware of Griggs sputtering and trying to protest.

“Colonel Flag is the only person I’ll take orders from. Apart from you, of course,” Belikov said to Waller. She said the right thing, because Waller told Griggs to hand over the keys to all of Belikov’s restraints.

“Welcome to the team,” Waller said as Griggs shuffled into the cell. Rick didn’t move from his kneeled position as he watched Griggs approach, and his eyes narrowed on the syringe in the guard’s hand. Griggs noticed and looked down at his hand before meeting Rick’s eyes, and he could easily read the fear in the man’s eyes.

“We always dose her before unlocking her,” he explained.

“Not today. Unlock her, Flag,” Waller decided. Griggs pocketed the syringe and passed over a ring of keys, and Rick looked at Belikov as the guard quickly vacated the cell.

He shifted and stretched to unlock the cuffs around her ankles first; he felt the overheated blood pulsing under her skin and listened as her toes popped, and she sighed quietly as she stretched her legs out. He went for the wrist cuff farthest from him next, ignored the sharp press of bone against his fingers, and watched as old blood fell from her other wrist in dry flakes as the cuff was removed. She raised her arms to lightly massage her bruised wrists as he unlocked the restraint around her middle, and he grit his teeth once she was completely unrestrained. His hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her into a sitting position, and the cot was so low to the ground that they were still on eye level with him kneeling. He gripped the shoulder of her orange shirt and pulled her forwards so that he could see the back of her head, and he held in a breath as he quickly unlocked the metal band around her eyes.

The metal band fell into her lap and then slipped off onto the concrete floor, and he let go of her shoulder as he leaned back and looked at her face. There were lined bruises under her eyes and above her brows, and she still had her eyes closed. Her hand raised so that her fingers could brush across the dark lines, and he was close enough to hear her quick intake of air. The restrains were only about a month old, but she had probably had her eyes covered the entire time that she had been in captivity. He called out and told Griggs to kill the lights, and Waller must have backed him up because the cell lights were cut off a moment later. Light from outside the cell helped him to vaguely see, but he knew that her eyes would be able to see everything in the cell with perfect clarity. _Ocular abilities_. It was written so simply in her file but didn’t come close to fully explaining everything that she was capable of.

Her eyes slowly opened, and a red glow spilled out. He felt the heat against his face and neck before the glow dimmed, until the red color was reduced to two small pinpricks of light in the darkness. He knew that her eyes didn’t always have a red glow to them, sometimes not even a red tint, but the bright color meant that she was using her abilities. He held still as her eyes raised, and he knew that she could see him in the darkness. He could see enough of her, the pale shape of her face, but her enhanced eyesight allowed her to see more. Knew that she could see the color of his eyes and the darker skin under his eyes from too many sleepless nights, and he heard her hum again as she studied him.

“You look tired, _solnyshko_.” Her hand raised towards his face, and he caught her wrist before she could touch him. The glow of her eyes intensified, so that he could see her faint smile. “You should take better care of yourself.”

“One day, I’m going to watch you die,” he told her. He tightened his grip on her wrist as he spoke and watched as her smile widened.

“Until then, let’s have some fun,” she whispered and leaned forward. He dropped her wrist and stood up, and he immediately took a step back. He could still see her smiling as she turned to look at the opened doorway, and he followed her line of sight to see that only Waller was still standing in the doorway. “What’s the job?”

“You’ll know when you need to know,” Waller informed her.

“Fair enough. Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ll behave,” Belikov promised. Dull light flooded the cell again, and Belikov had her eyes tightly shut when he looked down at her. After months of being basically blind, even the small amount of light was enough to hurt her overly sensitive eyes. He moved to walk out of the cell and had taken one step outside when she called out, “See you soon, _solnyshko_!”

The cell door closed with a loud bang, metal scraped across metal, and Griggs quickly locked the cell again. He could hear Griggs explaining the remaining collar to Waller, but he was staring at the closed door and listening as the woman inside laughed. It was the same sound that had echoed in his mind after she’d been taken in, and the back of his left shoulder started to itch the longer that he listened to her. He turned away from the door, put his back to that sound, and looked at Waller and Griggs. The guard was standing in a defensive position, arms crossed with his shoulders hunched down, while Waller looked up at him with sharp eyes that demanded answers. It was a look that he was familiar with, and he started to pick up their conversation. The collar still around Belikov’s neck was put there to deliver electric shocks whenever her body temperature raised, because her temp only went up when she was using her abilities.

“We wanted to put in an explosive, but we have orders to keep ‘em alive,” Griggs was saying. Those orders came from Waller, and Griggs seemed to realize that as he hurriedly looked away from her gaze.

“The shocks must not work too well if she killed a guard,” Waller pointed out.

“She didn’t use her abilities to kill Helm. She, uh, broke his neck before we could activate the collar,” Griggs admitted. Belikov was well-trained, he’d seen that firsthand, and he didn’t like the contemplative look on Waller’s face as she turned to look at him.

“What should our next move be?” she asked him. He knew he wasn’t an equal in this, that he didn’t have a final say, but he thought she might listen to him. Possibly.

“If you want to use them as a task force, they need to at least start to know one another,” he suggested.

“You want to put them all in one room and see what happens?” Waller asked with a faint smile.

“I was thinking outside, to avoid any internal damage,” he clarified. Belikov and Santana both had fire-based abilities, and it’d be easier to see them all interact in an open space that could be controlled. Like in the courtyard. The guards could post up around the walls.

“I really don’t think-” Griggs stopped speaking when Waller glanced at him, and he swore under his breath as he looked up at the ceiling.

“Call in an extra team. When they get here, you can set up some team exercises,” Waller said with far too much amusement. Then she turned to look at Griggs again and added, “Officer Griggs will assist you with everything.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you need,” Griggs said quickly. Rick grinned at him, wide enough to show his teeth, and then followed after Waller.

They were quiet as they left the prison, again with him driving while she sat in the backseat, and he let out a slow breath once they’d driven past the front gates. The sun was sitting lower in the sky, not quite dark yet but not far off, and he thought about the empty hotel room waiting for him. He’d order some food as soon as they got back and then start making calls. He knew what teams that he could use, but he wasn’t sure which ones would be available. GQ was his first choice, SEALs could handle anything, but he hadn’t talked to the younger man in a few months. If he was on an assignment, there were others that he could try. Maybe he’d pull in a team of Rangers just to see how Belikov reacted. He was still making a list of possible teams that would be able to handle a bunch of metahumans when Waller cleared her throat, and he knew a question was coming that he wasn’t going to like.

“You and Belikov seemed…close,” Waller settled on.

“She killed six of my soldiers, and I took her down,” Rick repeated. He’d said the same thing when he first showed up with the metahuman, and his report hadn’t elaborated much past that.

“Why didn’t she kill you?” Waller asked. He thought about the mansion where they’d found her, the puddles of blood on the marble floors and the retired major laid across his desk in pieces, and the back of his left shoulder started to itch again.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He knew why she believed she hadn’t killed him, but it still wasn’t something that he understood. When he’d walked out of that mansion with Belikov’s bleeding body tossed over his shoulder, he’d left behind nineteen bodies that she had personally put down.

“Maybe you should ask her.” Waller’s tone was light, conversational, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

The rest of the drive was spent in silence, and Rick walked Waller to her hotel room. Her room was adjoined to Moone’s, and his own room was at the end of the hall. Just like he’d decided, he called and ordered room service first. His next call was to Lieutenant Grant Edwards, and GQ and his team were thankfully free and ready to report immediately. He sent the information to Waller, who had approved the team before his food was delivered. After he got his food, he called Katana to check in. She was still off on her own mission, but he told her about their newest assignment and told her to be prepared to be called in at any time. Their call was short, Katana wasn’t the talkative type, and he stretched out across the too soft bed once he was full. It was too early for him to fall asleep, he was still on edge, and he tried not to think about _her_. Tried and failed, like many times before.

**20 JANUARY 2016**

**FLAG**

_“Jesus! What the fuck did they send us after?”_ was whispered through the comms. Rick stepped over another body, another mercenary he guessed, and wondered what the count was up to now. Before stepping into Major Scott’s home, she’d had twenty-six bodies on her name. He’d counted at least five dead mercenaries and could tell by the light chatter over the comms that there were others throughout the retired major’s mansion.

He had just cleared the kitchen, with only one dead body inside of it, when the screams started. He could hear Sam screaming that they were on the second floor, office, before Sam abruptly cut off. Liam reached the office at the same as him, and they both spilled into the office and straight into chaos. Marcus was screaming as fire crawled up his legs and covered his torso, and Rick dropped to a knee and immediately took a shot at the woman standing in the center of the room. He could see the red glow of her eyes as she locked her hands around Liam’s neck, and he fired off a few more rounds. A bullet tore through her shoulder while another hit her in the side, and she dropped to the floor. Liam was blocking his sight to her body, and he hurried forward to check on Liam. His neck was ringed with red but he was still breathing, and Rick started to turn to check on the target.

Heat blazed across the back of his shoulder, past the surface of his skin and into the muscle, and his body reacted on instinct. He dropped down and felt immediate relief, and the arc of fire moved past him to Liam. A foot pressed down against the center of his spine as fire coated Liam’s face, and Liam was still screaming as hands pushed against his pulse points. Just enough to immobilize him on the floor, and his gun was kicked away from his numb fingers. From where he was lying, he could see the large wooden desk and the carnage spread out across it. Major Scott had been ripped apart with the pieces left across the desk, and there were bodies spread out across the office. It was quiet now, Liam and Marcus were both dead, and he could see Sam lying in front of the desk with a hole burned through his chest. Tommy and Kyle were slumped back-to-back, with some kind of cord wrapped around their necks.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” The voice came from above him, and he cut his eyes upwards to see the woman responsible for so much death. She slowly knelt down, and he couldn’t look away from the red glow of her eyes as she gripped his shoulders and pulled him upright. She propped him up against a tipped over couch, and the blood on her hands was slick as she gripped his face and forced their eyes to meet. “Where is your darkness?”

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll show you,” he told her. What she had done to him wouldn’t last for long, and he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t killed him yet. She clearly hadn’t hesitated with anyone else.

“That’s cute,” she whispered and let him go. He was able to keep his head up, and the red glow of her eyes intensified as she continued to look at him.

“What are you looking for?” he asked. As far as he could tell, Peter wasn’t in the room. Maybe he’d escaped the room or had stayed back to call in for backup. There was still a chance that she could be taken down.

“I’m looking for your darkness, but there’s so much light.” Her head tilted as she spoke, like she was really looking at different parts of him, and he started to feel a deep ache in his legs. It wouldn’t be long before he could move fully again; he needed to keep her talking, and then maybe he’d be able to catch her off-guard.

“Why did you do all of this, Sergeant Bell?” The question snapped her out of the trance that she was in, and he was surprised to see that red glow fade completely. Since she was still kneeling in front of him, he was able to see the actual color of her eyes. Green, dark. Ordinary.

“Because I am not Elinor Bell. My name is Eleanora Belikov.” Some kind of recognition must have shown on his face, because she smiled and then reached out to press two bloody fingers against his temple. “You know the name?”

“The Belikov family was massacred twenty years ago. There were no survivors,” he said slowly. His old man had been a cop in Gotham when the Belikov family was taken out, and he’d been one of the first ones on the scene. Sometimes, after too many drinks, he’d talk about the way that the entire mafia family had been butchered. Father, mother, two sons, and a daughter. “Eleanora Belikov was killed.”

“Irina Ranskahov, our maid’s daughter, was killed that night. We were the same age, so everyone just assumed. Our maid escaped with me, and we changed our names. Started over.” Her fingers traced down the side of his face, leaving a trail of blood, and he looked at the way blood pulsed out of the hole he’d put in her right shoulder.

“It was rumored that mercenaries had been hired to kill the Belikov family, but the case is still open,” he said as she hummed quietly.

“The first eight men I killed? They killed my family, so I believe the case is finally closed now,” she said and smiled again.

“What about the next eighteen men? What did they do?” he asked. The more she talked, the more he could hear the accent coloring her words. Everyone who had been questioned about Sergeant Bell hadn’t mentioned an accent, but he couldn’t believe that she was really Eleanora Belikov. Why would she wait so long to reveal herself? Why join the Army?

“They were all so dark, and they deserved what they got,” she whispered. She leaned closer to him, and he watched as a red tint colored her eyes. No one had known that she was a metahuman, but it explained how she’d been able to kill so many people in such a short amount of time. “You’re humoring me, trying to buy time until you can move again. I don’t fault you for that, it’s the rational thing to do in your situation, but I want to know. Do you believe me?”

“I believe that you’ve killed a lot of people. A lot of _soldiers_ ,” he emphasized. Her hand reached out and pressed over his chest, and the slight bit of pressure pushed his burned shoulder against the couch. He wanted to recoil from the pain but held her eyes instead.

“You don’t understand because you can’t see, but that’s a conversation for another day when you’re more accepting. Do you believe that I am who I say I am?” Her fingers slowly curled so that the front of his uniform was clenched in her fist, but she never blinked as she slowly pulled him up and closer to her face. As the red glow grew brighter, he started to feel heat against his face. Not enough to burn, but it felt like a warning.

“If you are Belikov, why wait so long? Why join the military at all?” he asked instead of answering. Her head tilted to the side as she studied him, but she didn’t release her hold on him as those eyes seemed to stare straight through him.

“Sometimes to kill an enemy, you need to understand them first. So I studied and I learned, and then I used what I had learned to go after the people who killed my family.” Her other hand raised, and she winced for the first time as her right shoulder pulsed with more blood. “I understand who my parents were, and I know they were lost to the darkness. What happened to them was always going to happen eventually, but my brothers? They were still young and innocent, and Irina was my friend.”

“You telling me that you joined the military to learn how to kill the men who killed your brothers and friend?” He could hear the confusion in his voice, but he believed her. Under that inhuman glow, he could see the grief she felt. Eleanora Belikov was kneeling in front of him, holding him up while his limbs slowly started to regain feeling, and her other hand was now tracing over his tags.

“Seems a bit dramatic, I know. I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed it, being Sergeant Bell. I would have done anything for the people I served with, which is why I knew I had to get out. Nothing could sway me. They had to pay for what they did. Can you really blame me for that?” She held his eyes for a moment longer and then glanced down, and he wasn’t sure how she was able to read his tags in the brief second that she looked down before looking into his eyes again. “Do you think I was in the wrong for getting my revenge, Rick Flag?”

“No.” He watched as she smiled, wide enough to show her teeth and put small lines next to her eyes, and then kept talking. “You didn’t stop at getting revenge. You kept going.”

“I’ve never killed an innocent. Everyone that I’ve killed, they deserved it,” she said quietly. He could see in her eyes that she believed what she was saying, which meant that she had to be crazy.

“You killed five of my men, and they didn’t deserve to die,” he said from between clenched teeth. Frustration showed clearly on her face as she pushed him back and swiftly got to her feet, and her left hand raised to push through her hair as she paced away from him. Where was Peter with the backup?

“You don’t understand because you can’t _see_!” She easily moved around the bodies on the floor as she paced across the office, and he could see blood from her right side dripping down her jeans and onto the floor. After a few turns around the room, she smoothly slid back onto the floor until she was kneeling directly in front of him again. “It’s not about the fringes, or the patches, or the streaks. It’s all about what’s at the center, at the core, that’s where the truth is. All of them, they were _dark_ in their core.”

“Am I?” he asked. He already knew that her eyes were enhanced, he had a burn on his back that proved that, but what she was claiming was something more. Something much more.

“No, Rick Flag, you do not have darkness in your core,” she whispered. Her left hand pressed against the center of his chest again without pushing him back this time, and then her hand slid to the side until her hand was resting over his heart.

“Is that why I’m alive?” She had killed everyone else, without hesitation, but she was talking to him because she believed he was different. Now he just needed to see if that was going to be enough to save him.

“Yes. I can’t kill you. Not when you’re still this bright,” she said and smiled. There was a sudden sound in the room, a harsh wet cough, and her smile widened as the red glow returned to her eyes. “Looks like someone is still with us.”

Belikov stood up and continued to smile at him as she took a few steps backward, and he could hear quiet groaning coming from somewhere behind the large office desk. It was possible that it was another one of Scott’s mercenaries, but there was a sinking feeling in his gut. She was still faced towards him as she stepped around the desk, and she kept her eyes on him as she bent down and reached for whoever was on the floor. She managed to get the man up onto his knees next to the desk, and half of Peter’s face had been burned off. One eye was rolling uselessly, and Peter was making quiet gasping sounds as his body tried to fall. He couldn’t hold himself up, and Belikov was keeping him up by holding onto the collar of his uniform.

“Don’t,” he heard himself say.

“You wouldn’t say that if you could see what I see.” The bright glow from her eyes caused Peter to be washed in red, but it didn’t seem like she was trying to burn him. “Think of it this way. He’s in pain. Even if he somehow survived his injuries, he’d be in pain for the rest of his life. I’m going to be merciful.”

“If you kill him-”

“You’ll what? Will you shoot me?” she asked him. Her head tilted again as she studied him, and he wanted to know what she was seeing when she did that. Whatever it was, it made his skin feel too tight. “I’ve already told you that I can’t kill you. Would you shoot someone that’s not a threat to you?”

“Yes. If you kill him,” he promised. She kept Peter up on his knees as she reached down and pulled his sidearm, and she slid the gun across the floor. The gun stopped against his boot, and his fingers curled into fists. He couldn’t lift his arms, not yet, but he was close to having full motor control.

“Because he’s one of yours? A member of your team?” she asked and shook Peter a little. Rick couldn’t tell if Peter was fully conscious, wasn’t even sure how the man was still alive, and he thought about the five other members of his team lying dead in the room. He didn’t know them well, didn’t consider them friends, but they were his team. His responsibility.

“Yes.”

“Loyalty, I can respect that. I do respect that. Maybe, one day, you’ll understand that this is something that I have to do,” she said quietly as her hands shifted.

Those glowing red eyes never left his as her hands gripped Peter’s face, and he wouldn’t let himself look away as her arms twisted. He could hear the quiet snap of Peter’s neck and felt a surge of adrenaline, and his training kicked in. He scooped up the gun lying at his feet and took immediate aim, and he never hesitated to pull the trigger. Belikov hit the floor only moments after Peter, and he slumped back against the couch as he pulled in quick breaths. He could hear Belikov still breathing and then she started to laugh, and he didn’t realize that he’d closed his eyes until he opened them to seek her out. She was lying flat on her back, her body shaking as her laughing grew louder, and that shouldn’t be possible. He’d shot her in the heart. He kept a hold on the gun as he managed to crawl across the floor, and she turned her head to watch him approach. While still laughing.

“Why aren’t you dead?” he asked as he knelt next to her. Her right shoulder and right side were still bleeding sluggishly, and there was blood soaking through the left side of her shirt. Despite seeing the blood, he dropped the gun and reached out to rip the top of her tee shirt. There was a hole on the left side of her chest, right over her heart, but she was still alive and laughing.

“You shot me, knowing that I wouldn’t kill you, but you’re still so bright.” He could hear his own frustration building in the base of his throat, and he reached out to grip her chin and forced her eyes to meet his again. The red glow dimmed, back into an ordinary green color, and her wide manic grin faded into a soft smile. Her left hand shook as she reached up and circled her bloody fingers around his wrist as she told him, “You can kill me, _solnyshko_. You just aimed for the wrong side.”

“You want me to kill you?” Wrong side. Her heart was on the right? He knew it was possible, just rare, and he thought about the gun on the floor next to him. Thought about how easy it would be to pick it up and pull the trigger one more time.

“I don’t want to die, no, but I can’t kill you. Which means that I can’t save myself. It’s up to you. Do what you think is right,” she said and then closed her eyes. Her body went lax, but she was still conscious because she was tapping her finger against the pulse point in his wrist. Killing her would be easy. No one would blame him. It’d be what she deserved.

“I’m taking you in,” he decided. He wasn’t like her, wasn’t some kind of criminal, and he was going to do what he was told to do. Someone wanted her brought in, and that was what he was going to do.

“So bright, _solnyshko_ ,” she whispered. He reached for his comm to call in backup, but she was still gripping his wrist. He looked down to see that her eyes were open again, without any hint of red in them, and she was still smiling softly up at him. “You don’t need backup. I surrender, fully, to you.”

**03 JULY 2016**

**BELIKOV**

Elya woke up and was actually able to see as she opened her eyes, and she smiled as she looked at the dull lights in the ceiling. The cot she was lying on was just as uncomfortable as ever, her stomach felt like an empty pit, but she still couldn’t stop smiling. Being strapped down to the cot for twenty hours a day had been miserable; darts had been shot through the door to knock her unconscious whenever someone entered her cell, which meant that she was unconscious when she was strapped down and when she was let free. They’d let her eat, use the bathroom, and walk around for a couple of hours before strapping her down again. Once in the morning and once at night. Her eyes though…the metal casing had been on since her first transfer. Rick Flag hadn’t bothered to cover her eyes, because she had promised not to kill him. Had surrendered herself to him. The guards at the first black site she was taken to hadn’t been as trustworthy. For five months, she’d been essentially blind. Until yesterday. She could finally _see_.

“Belikov! If I open this door, are you going to behave?!” The voice belonged to Griggs, and she felt a familiar heat taking over her eyes as she looked at the door. She knew that some of the people who had studied her believed that she could see through solid objects, but she didn’t have X-Ray vision. Just night vision, enhanced vision, what the experts called ocular blasts, and the ability to see the truth of a person. X-Ray vision would be fun though.

“Scout’s honor!” she called back. She sat up and crossed her legs under her as the cell door creaked open, and Griggs walked in with a tray of food held out in front of him. She could see toast, what might have been scrambled eggs, and a little paper carton of milk. It was definitely better than the usual mashed lump of food that they gave her.

“Well, don’t you look all bright-eyed,” Griggs said after he stopped right inside of the cell. She could see armed guards behind him, both holding dart guns at the ready, and she didn’t blame them for being cautious. Her eyes flared a brighter red as she studied Griggs, for the first time, and she was surprised by what she saw. In simplest terms, she was able to see his aura clinging to him like a second skin. A putrid yellow that showed his fear, with thin streaks of dirt brown that proved his determination. At his core though, at his _heart_ , she could see a pulsing gray mass. She’d been expecting black, expecting the darkness, but Griggs wasn’t quite there. Not an innocent, but not dark either.

“Apologies,” she said as the heat retreated from her eyes. She knew that now her eyes would look normal, average and dark green, and her head tipped to the side as she smiled. “I’m still adjusting to being able to see. Don’t worry, Officer Griggs, you’re safe with me.”

“I very much doubt that, sweetheart. I remember what you did to Helm,” Griggs said as he laughed nervously. In all honesty, she probably shouldn’t have killed the guard. She hadn’t been able to see him, hadn’t been able to see the darkness, but her temper had gotten the better of her.

“If he had kept his hand out of my pants, he would have been just fine. You would never do something like that, would you?” she asked and resisted the urge to look at his aura. Would he be even more afraid? Would his aura shiver and shake?

“Absolutely not,” Griggs said and took a cautious step forward. “Your colonel buddy called and said to feed you protein, so I brought you some eggs. Now, I’ve got a busy day, taking in a new prisoner, but I’ve got a reward for you if you behave today.”

“What kind of reward?” she asked and kept her eyes on the tray. She hadn’t been fed the previous day, probably because of all the excitement, and her stomach was tight with hunger.

“Chicken lunch, steak dinner, and a real shower tonight.” Chicken? Steak? Shower? Rick must have called and put the fear of God into Griggs if she was getting all of this, but why? She knew that he hated her, that he hadn’t forgiven her for killing his team, and she understood that. She didn’t understand the special treatment. Unless he was doing it out of loyalty. Rick Flag was a loyal soldier, and she was needed for something. So he was going to make sure that she was in fighting shape.

“I’ll behave,” she promised. She didn’t think any of the guards would try to put their hands on her again, so she should be able to keep that promise. Griggs placed the tray on the end of the cot, and it was her years of self-discipline that stopped her from falling on the tray of scrambled eggs like a rabid dog.

“We’ll see about that,” Griggs said and backed out of the cell. She waited until he had stepped outside and started to close the door before calling out, and she saw him jump a little before moving his head to look through the crack still left.

“Have a nice day,” she said with a wide smile. Griggs cursed under his breath as the cell door closed, and she counted to thirty before snatching the tray up. There weren’t any utensils, which made sense, so she scooped up the cold eggs with her fingers and shoveled them into her mouth.

_“Things are changing,”_ she thought as she chewed on the rubbery eggs. For the first time in months, she was looking forward to what came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Rick Flag/OC story, but it’s going to take a while. Also, you can see some of the changes already. Rick and June didn’t fall for each other. Instead, Waller is acting like a maternal figure and manipulating June that way. I’m not sure if it’s obvious, but I’m going to have the team meet before things get critical so that they can get to know each other before being sent out as a unit. I’m really looking forward to writing the next chapter, because everyone is going to meet and it’s going to be interesting. I hope. Thanks for reading.


	2. So Far Outta Your Hands

**03 JULY 2016**

**FLAG**

“You got a report for me, Griggs?” Rick asked after the guard rattled on about how hungry he was for a couple of minutes. He was tense, had been all day, because he’d spent most of the day in a room with Amanda Waller. First with briefing GQ’s team, who had arrived in record time after some behind-the-scenes help from Waller, and then while she talked to some scientists about ways to put a leash on his new _team_.

“Yeah, we got Harkness set up. Knocked out Miller and Dawson lost a couple of teeth, but no one died or was hospitalized,” Griggs said and laughed. Maybe the head guard had been at Belle Reve for a little too long, because the laugh was a little too high-pitched to be from true humor and then cut off abruptly. 

“I’ll be sure to give him a stern talking-to tomorrow,” Rick huffed out. After the SEALs had been briefed on Task Force X, on the metahuman criminals that they were going to be both working with and guarding from escape, GQ had pulled him aside and asked if it was all real. Rick had just told him that he’d be able to see for himself tomorrow.

“That’s funny. You’re a funny guy.” Griggs sounded tense as well, and Rick would have recommended a vacation if it were possible. Griggs had somehow managed to keep all the prisoners both locked up and alive, so he doubted that Waller was going to let him leave anytime soon. 

“What about Belikov?” he decided to ask. He’d called that morning, to tell Griggs about Harkness’s transfer and with orders to take care of Belikov, because he had realized that he was going to need her. Out of all the prisoners, she was the only one who knew how to work well with a team. 

“Been quiet all day. Adamson dropped off her chicken lunch and said she was working out. I took her down a steak dinner and then got a female guard to escort her to the shower. She’s being a model prisoner. Must really like you,” Griggs said like he didn’t know how to turn his mouth off. Rick remembered the feeling of her bloody hands on his skin and the soft smile on her face when she looked at him sometimes, and he fought down the sudden urge to throw his phone at the wall. 

“She’s intelligent and manipulative, so whatever you do, do not let your guard down around her. I’ll be there at first light with her breakfast. You remember everything that’s happening tomorrow?” Rick was tense from not being able to do much all day, but tomorrow was going to be different. Very different. 

“We’ll be prepared.”

Rick said a few more words and then hung up when Griggs started lamenting the sad boxed dinner waiting for him, when he’d taken a steak to a prisoner. He fell back against his hotel bed, the mattress and sheets were too soft, and went over everything that needed to be done the next day. He wanted to meet with Belikov first, and he was taking her breakfast as a way of reaching out. He’d talked to Waller about possibly setting up a reward system for the prisoners; she’d been reluctant at first, but he’d told her that there wouldn’t be any rewards until the team proved that they could successfully handle missions. If they wanted them to be a team, they had to offer them something. Only promising not to kill them would only go so far, and Belle Reve was so miserable that it’d be easy to give small rewards. Better food. Hot showers. Actual beds. Less beatings. 

_“There’s no way this works out,”_ he thought while desperately thinking of ways to make himself into a liar.

**04 JULY 2016**

**BELIKOV**

“Belikov! You decent?!” The voice didn’t belong to one of the guards, and she could feel herself already smiling as she recognized that impatient yell.

“Always!” she called back. She sat up on her cot as her cell door opened, and the smell of hot food reached her before Rick stepped into her cell. He nearly closed the cell door behind him, only a thin crack was left, and she started to run her fingers through her slightly tangled hair. Being able to shower the night before, with a full stomach, had nearly put her to sleep. She’d passed out as soon as she was returned to her cell, and it looked like she had actually slept through the night. She didn’t have a brush in her cell to undo the tangles, but she barely cared because her hair was soft between her fingers and lacking grease. 

“Looking a little better,” Rick said as he looked her over with a critical eye. With anyone else, she would think it was a come-on or at least a compliment to get in her good graces. Colonel Flag was a soldier first though, so he was merely assessing her usefulness. 

“Three meals and a shower can have that effect. I hear I have you to thank for that, _solnyshko_.” She watched as his nose scrunched up a little, his only indication that he didn’t like her nickname for him, but he had never once asked her to stop using it. He didn’t now either. 

“Can I sit?” he asked her. She was sitting up near the head of the cot, but the cot itself wasn’t very big. She was shorter than average, and it was barely long enough for her. She was surprised that he would want to sit that close, and her head tilted to the side as she studied him. 

“Very gentlemanly of you to ask, but I know that I don’t have rights here. If you want to sit, _sit_ ,” she said and pointedly looked at the open space. Rick sighed and then took only two steps to reach the foot of the cot, and he angled himself towards her as he sat down. The brown bag he was holding was placed on the cot next to his hip, and she continued to finger-comb her hair as she resolutely did not look at the bag that obviously contained a hot breakfast. 

“You understand what’s happening. That woman that was here, she’s putting together a team. Of people like you,” Rick said and met her eyes for the first time since entering her cell. She kept her eyes average, even though she wanted to see the brightness of his core. After being in the dark for so long, looking at him would feel like a benediction. She knew that glowing eyes were usually a sign of danger though, so she resisted the urge. 

“People like me? You mean criminals?” Rick held her gaze and didn’t say anything, and she realized what he really meant. “Metahuman criminals. The others that are here, that I’ve never seen because I’m assuming we’re all in solitary confinement, are dangerous metahuman criminals as well?”

“The worst of the worst,” Rick confirmed. He said it without breaking eye contact, which meant that he still wasn’t her biggest fan. Not that she particularly blamed him for that. She couldn’t blame him for something that he didn’t understand. 

“I’m flattered,” she murmured and glanced down at the bag of food. The smell was heavenly, she could feel saliva building under her tongue as her stomach clenched, but she continued to run her fingers through her hair as she thought past the hunger still clinging to her. “The food yesterday, the shower, that bag…what do you want from me, colonel?”

“The others in this prison, they aren’t team players, but it’s my job to make them into a team,” Rick started to explain. He reached down and picked up the bag, and his eyes met hers again as he held the bag out towards her. She stopped detangling her hair and sat up straight, and she kept their eyes locked as she reached out and carefully took the bag. 

“You want me to help, to bridge the gap between soldier and criminal, and I am willing to do that because I know that participation isn’t voluntary. It’s this or death, I’m assuming?” she asked. The bag of food was cradled in the open space between her legs, and she could feel the heat from the bag through her thin uniform. 

“That would be correct,” Rick said slowly. Then he glanced down and looked at the way her fingers were flicking across the top of the bag without trying to unroll it. “Eat the food before it gets cold.”

“I’m also assuming that I’m your only option, because of my background. Do you still hate me for what I did?” she asked and finally opened the bag. The thick smell of grease seemed to hit her in the face, and her eyes closed as she slowly breathed in. Her stomach growled as well, but whatever embarrassment she might have once felt had disappeared when she first joined the Army. 

“Are you asking if I’ve forgiven you for killing my men?” he asked as she reached inside the bag. She pulled out a small red plastic basket, it looked like a woven basket without a handle, and her eyes narrowed at the wrapped food. “It’s a chicken biscuit and tater logs.”

“You must have forgiven me a little bit,” she mumbled as she unwrapped the biscuit. She held it up to get a better look; the biscuit itself was golden and flaky, and the chicken was actually wrapped in bacon. She doubted she’d live long enough to have a heart attack, so she shrugged and took a big bite. 

“I haven’t forgiven you at all, but you are now a part of my team.” It sounded like Rick was talking from between clenched teeth, and she looked away from her delicious biscuit to watch him while she chewed. When she struggled to swallow down the dry parts of the biscuit, Rick reached into the bag and handed over a bottle with a light brown liquid inside. She drank it without question and smiled at the taste of sweet tea. 

“Loyalty is going to get you killed,” she told him once she could speak. 

“Can I count on you or not?” He didn’t look or sound angry, but there was a new set of tension along his shoulders. Something about what she had said bothered him, but she wasn’t going to push. Maybe she should hate Rick Flag; he had shot her multiple times and was the one who delivered her to a black site prison, but she didn’t have it in her to hate him. He’d been following orders, and she hadn’t been able to see any darkness in him. It was almost frustrating, how she couldn’t even make herself dislike him. 

“I know my word isn’t worth much to you, but you can. I’ll help as much as I can, but I can’t promise anything. I’m sure, after being in here, that they’re not exactly the trusting type. It’ll take time to get them to open up, if they ever do.” She wasn’t even sure how many people were inside the prison or how many people would be on this new team. 

“What if I let you read their files?” He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he asked it, and she imagined that he hated having to ask for her help like this.

“That would certainly help,” she said between bites. Rick kept quiet while she finished off the biscuit, which didn’t take very long, and she slowed down once there were only a handful of tater logs left. 

There was something that she wanted to ask him, but she needed to be able to see when she asked it. He seemed relaxed enough, so she slowly let heat creep into her eyes. Not too much, she didn’t want to get shocked into a coma, but just enough to let her see the light green color clinging to Rick’s skin. He met her eyes and didn’t flinch away from the faint red glow, and green sparks fell from his lashes when he blinked. Green seemed to be his baseline, everyone’s was different, but everyone had a certain color for when they were at rest. There were different colored streaks, bright orange for whatever anger he was feeling, and dark smudges around the fringes of his aura. Patches. Then there was his core. It wasn’t a pure white, like a child’s or someone who was truly innocent, but it was still so bright at the very center. The edges of his core were a pearly green, but the center itself was a swirl of seafoam green and pale gold. She liked to think of it as a sunrise over the ocean, and she had to tear her eyes away from Rick’s core to focus on his eyes instead. 

“What are you doing, Belikov?” he asked quietly. 

“Do you know when I was transferred here?” she asked instead of answering. She’d already told Rick that she wouldn’t kill him, so she wasn’t going to reassure him again. She would just have to prove her words by continuing to not kill him. 

“April twentieth,” he answered immediately. 

“Do you know where I was before here?” She’d been at Belle Reve for a little over a month when she killed a guard that had been a little too handsy, and she’d only been at this particular hellhole for a little over two months. She’d spent her first few weeks after being taken in locked inside of a dark hole, literally. No light whatsoever, and she hadn’t been able to burn her way through the walls. (Not that she had been seriously trying to escape, but she’d gotten bored.) A little less than a month after her capture, she’d finally been taken to a prison facility. 

“Redacted from your file, even from me,” Rick admitted. She carefully watched the colors around him, and everything remained steady. He was telling the truth. 

“Ever heard of Thorncliff?” she asked next. The orange streaks in his aura brightened into red, pulsed and thickened, and her head tilted in thought. He was angry, furious, but she couldn’t read that on his face or in his eyes. Just through his aura. 

“That’s not a prison. It’s a-.” He stopped himself from saying anything more, but she knew all of the adjectives that could be used. She’d been there. 

“So you know what they did to me?” She dumped the empty basket back into the bag and brushed her hands across her thighs, and her fingers flicked at the bottom of her uniform shirt. 

“I’ve heard rumors, of doctors studying prisoners with abilities,” he bit out. 

“Studying is one word for it,” she said and lifted her shirt. She pulled up the bottom to just under her breasts and pulled down the collar to expose the top of her sternum, and she watched as his eyes looked over the long scar down the center of her. They had slit her open, sternum to navel, and poked around inside. Her mirrored organs had been left untouched, thankfully, but they’d been trying to understand her abilities. Her increased temperature and how she didn’t cook herself alive whenever she raised her own temperature, which they’d made her do while they laid her open. 

“I didn’t know,” Rick told her in a hoarse whisper. Next to the red streaks, she could see flashes of pale blue. He was sad for her, for what had been done to her. She dropped her shirt and then realized that he had lifted his hand out towards her, and she raised a brow because she never thought of him as the type to cop a feel. When she saw where his hand was hovering, she realized what he’d been looking at. 

“The scars you left on me were justified. Darkness or not, I killed your team. You had every reason to shoot me. The surgical scar was completely unnecessary,” she explained quietly. His fingers had stopped just before touching the circular scar on the left side of her chest, where he had attempted to shoot her through the heart. Where he would have shot her through the heart if she hadn’t been born with her organs mirrored. 

“Why are you telling me this? Asking if I knew?” he asked after pulling his hand back. His aura had calmed again, but the red streaks were still there. Thinner, but it meant his anger was still there. She felt the heat fading from her eyes, and the colors drifted away as her eyes returned to normal. 

“Because I want to know what kind of man you are, and I needed to know what you knew. I also needed you to know what happened so that I when I make this promise, you’ll know that I mean it,” she said slowly. 

“What promise?” was his predictable question. 

“I’ll do whatever is asked of me, I’ll be a soldier again. If anyone tries to study me, I won’t hold back. Do you understand me?” she asked him. She had never really considered trying to break free, to escape, but she knew that she would never allow someone to cut her open again.

“You do realize that I’m not really the one in charge?” She raised a brow at that, because she knew how the chain of command worked, and he took in a deep breath and then slowly released it. “If anyone tries to open you up again, I’ll stand down and let you do whatever you need to do.”

“I knew I liked you, _solnyshko_ ,” she said and smiled. This time he huffed and even rolled his eyes before looking away from her, and she watched as he leaned back against the wall and stretched his legs out. After a moment, he turned to look at her and didn’t hesitate to meet her eyes. 

“When I leave this cell, I’m going to take you to a labcoat. Not to be studied, but to be leashed.” He said the words quietly, and there was confusion in his eyes. Like he didn’t understand why he was talking, so she was guessing that he wasn’t supposed to tell her that. She hummed as she leaned her shoulder and the side of her head against the wall, and her arms crossed over her full stomach. 

“Leashed in what way? The collar already sends out enough electricity to put me in a coma, so what more could be used? Unless they’re finally going to put a bomb around my neck.” She kept her voice quiet, matching his volume and almost conversational tone, and it reminded her of quiet conversations in the barracks. Back in her other life. 

“Not _around_ your neck,” he admitted. Well, that was a little unnerving. 

“Who holds the detonator? Just the boss lady?” she asked. 

“Boss lady and me,” he said and raised a brow. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, because of course he’d have the ability to blow her up. Maybe he’d get to see her dead after all. 

“Fair enough. Will my teammates be getting the same treatment?” She assumed they would be, but it never hurt to ask. 

“They will,” he said and nodded once. She doubted that they would get the same heads-up as her, and she was suddenly very thankful for Rick’s odd sense of loyalty. She was a part of his team now, yes, but she had been a soldier once. Such a strange man. 

“Thanks for the warning, and try to stop looking so worried. I’ll go quietly,” she said and smiled again. His eyes narrowed, but the slight glare wiped out the worried expression so she was counting it as a win. 

“Why are you going along with all of this? What’s your endgame?” he asked after a moment. She was surprised that he hadn’t asked sooner, but she guessed that agreeing to having a bomb implanted inside of her was a bit suspicious. 

“Do you want me to tell you the truth or what you want to hear?” she asked. She liked their relaxed positions, leaning against the wall and talking quietly like they were actually friends, but she knew that one wrong word could change everything. She believed that Rick Flag was a good man, but everyone had a breaking point. 

“What do I want to hear?” he asked first. 

“That I’m being agreeable and complacent because I’m working on a way to escape, through any means necessary. Up to and including: manipulation, blunt force, and my abilities,” she listed off. That was the rational thing to believe, and maybe that was even the logical thing for her to do. To search for a way to get free. She hadn’t exactly done the logical thing in a very long time, if ever. 

“Alright, so what’s the truth?” he asked after thinking that through. 

“That I never planned to survive past getting revenge for my family. Even with my abilities and training, I had hoped to die in a blaze of glory while taking them out. I survived though, and I kept surviving. I didn’t plan on continuing to kill. I just kept moving forward. Even after surrendering, I didn’t think about the future. Because, let’s be honest with each other, I should have died when I was five. I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since.”

“Borrowed time?”

“There’s no plan here, _solnyshko_. I’m just moving forward until I can’t anymore,” she admitted. It wasn’t something that she thought she’d ever say out loud, and she carefully watched Rick’s face as he thought her words over. She couldn’t tell if he believed her, but he wasn’t dismissing her. 

“Am I supposed to just believe that?” It still wasn’t a dismissal, and his eyes looked troubled as he held her gaze. 

“Give me time, I’ll prove it to you,” she told him.

**FLAG**

Rick kept his hand tight around Belikov’s upper arm, and he kept his eyes forward as Griggs nervously looked over his shoulder for the fifth time since he’d escorted Belikov out of her cell. The woman was heavily chained, with the shock collar still around her neck, and he had told Griggs that she wasn’t a threat when they first stepped out. The guard looked between them before quickly turning around again, and he glanced down and to the side after feeling a flash of heat against the side of his face. The red glow of Belikov’s eyes faded as she grinned up at him and then winked, and she turned to look ahead of her before he could settle a reprimanding glare on her. A part of him was thankful that she’d looked away, because he didn’t want her eyes on him for too long. Not while he kept hearing the last sentence she’d said in her cell repeating in his mind, over and over.

_“Give me time, I’ll prove it to you.”_

He didn’t want to believe her, about any of it. Didn’t want to believe what she had told him, that she’d follow along with everything without protest, but he couldn’t shake the image of her torso. He’d noticed the long surgical scar immediately; the thick dark red scar stood out against her pale skin, indented through the middle and puckered on the sides, and he didn’t want to imagine what the docs at Thornhill had done to her. He’d heard enough stories about that place, and about the test subjects that didn’t survive. So while he wasn’t sure if she really intended to follow his orders, he did believe what she had promised him. That if she was opened up again, she’d do whatever it took to get free. The surprising part was that he meant what he had said. If anyone opened her up, he’d stand down when she retaliated. He wouldn’t help her escape, but he wouldn’t stand in her way either. If ordered to track her down afterwards, he’d do that too. 

_“There’s no plan here, solnyshko. I’m just moving forward until I can’t anymore.”_

He believed there was some truth to that. He was sure that she had planned out getting her revenge but that she hadn’t thought past that, which was why she’d left such a messy and easy-to-follow trail behind her as she slaughtered her way through ex-military mercenaries and officials. He had a harder time believing that she was living each day ready to die. That she was being so agreeable and complacent, as she had put it, because she didn’t have a plan. Maybe she believed what she had said, but there had to be a part of her that was planning a way towards freedom. For now, he’d play along because he knew that he needed her. If he had to give her special treatment to gain her trust and easy compliance, so be it. (If he had actually enjoyed talking to her, no one had to know.)

“Once this is over, will I have to keep wearing the collar? It chafes,” Belikov said and looked up at him. They’d stepped into the medical wing of the prison, and he could see two labcoats shifting nervously next to a monitor. 

“The collar could interfere with the device, so it will be permanently removed,” he told her. He heard Griggs cursing quietly, at his post by the door, and Rick continued to walk Belikov deeper into the room. He tried to ignore the way his fingers overlapped as he tightened his grip around her bicep and directed her into a chair, but he hadn’t been able to forget the sight of her ribs pushing against her skin earlier. She needed to eat more. She wasn’t effective in this state. 

“So there’s a silver lining,” she said and smiled brightly. The two labcoats still looked nervous, so he stayed by Belikov’s side instead of stepping away. 

A thin man with bushy eyebrows stepped up, and Rick narrowed his eyes on the man’s shaking hand as he looked closely at the side of Belikov’s neck. To her credit, she didn’t flinch or try to back away when the clearly unsteady man raised a large gun-shaped injection device. She just tilted her head to the side to expose her neck and then closed her eyes. Instead of watching the injection, he watched her face as the explosive was implanted. Her brows pulled down as her lips thinned, and he could see a flash of red behind her closed eyelids. The color faded in an instant, and her expression slowly evened out. She was breathing steadily as a dark-haired woman quickly walked over, and she used a small ultrasound to check that the explosive was in the right position. 

“She’s done,” the woman told him and then stepped away. He turned around and crossed the room in a few steps, and Griggs held his eyes for a tense moment as he held his hand out. The guard cursed again and looked away to search his pockets, and he passed over a small key without looking up. 

“Hold still, Belikov,” he said and reached out. He had to move her hair out of the way to see the back of the collar, and the lock itself was simple. The key slid right in, clicked twice as he turned it, and the back of the collar popped open. He grabbed one side and removed it from her neck, and he tossed the collar with the key still in it onto a nearby table. The labcoats could dispose of it. 

“Well, that was very anticlimactic,” she said as he grabbed her arm and pulled her up from the chair. The chains around her wrists and ankles clinked together as she moved, and he listened to the quiet sound as he led her out of the room. Griggs left the room ahead of them, escorting them back into the prison proper, and he looked down as Belikov carefully stretched her neck. 

“That bomb is now active. You attempt escape and-”

“Boom?” she cut in. He just continued to look down at her, and she smiled up at him. “Relax, _solnyshko_ , I know how this works.”

He hated that nickname. It reminded him of the night that he took her in, so much that he could hear her talking about darkness and about how light he was, and it made his skin feel too tight. Like he suddenly didn’t fit inside of his own skin anymore. As much as he hated the nickname though, he hated the way she said his name even more. She hadn’t said his name since that night at Major Scott’s home, the night that she killed his team and then surrendered to him, but he still remembered. Remembered the way it sounded, his name in her softly accented voice, and remembered the way he felt when she said his full name and looked him in the eye. It was unsettling, put him on edge, and he could live with the nickname _sunshine_ as long as he didn’t have to feel like that. He preferred it when she called him _colonel_ , because he was used to being addressed that way. 

“Colonel Sir? You requested these?” There was a guard waiting for them outside of Belikov’s cell, holding a locked case, and the kid looked barely old enough to shave. 

“Do I get a reward for playing nice?” Belikov asked and grinned up at him. Rick took the case from the guard and then walked Belikov back into her cell, and he heard Griggs talking quietly with the other guard outside of the door. 

“These are the files on your teammates,” he told her and laid the case on the cot. He pulled a keyring from his pocket and started on unlocking her restraints, and he could feel her eyes on him. He worked as quickly as he could, because he didn’t like kneeling at her feet with her eyes watching his every movement. 

“Complete files or basic?” she asked. He gathered up the chains and stepped back into the doorway, and he passed the pile to the young guard. Then he closed the cell door most of the way and walked over to the cot to pick up the case. It was biometric, so he placed his thumb against the edge and then popped it open. 

“My personal files, complete with notes. Study them, quickly, because the first team meeting is this afternoon.” He returned the case to the cot, fully open this time, and scooped up the brown bag that had contained her breakfast and now just held trash. When he straightened up, she was still standing in the same spot and had her head tipped back so that she could meet his eyes. 

“Since I’m being very accommodating, would you do me a favor?” she asked him. His teeth ground together as his jaw clenched, because he should have seen this coming. Why would she do all of this without getting something in return?

“Depends on the favor,” he bit out. For a moment, he must have let himself believe her a little if he was feeling this tense now.

“When you get some free time, do a little research on the men that I killed. I don’t know what caused their darkness, but it takes effort to kill all of the light inside of a person.” She said it all slowly, carefully, and it took him a moment to realize what she had asked. He understood what she was asking, on a basic level even if he still had problems wrapping his mind around the whole _darkness_ bit of it, but he couldn’t understand why. 

“Why would I do that?” He held her eyes as he asked it, and he kept waiting for that dark green color to shift into something brighter. Her eyes never changed though. Those dark eyes just continued to look up at him as she smiled, but it was smaller than her grins and looked almost sad. 

“Because right now, you still think of me as the woman who killed fellow soldiers. As the woman who killed your team. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, but I want you to understand why I did what I did. I don’t think that’s asking too much,” she said quietly. 

“I’ll think about it,” he finally decided. If he got some free time and felt like trying to understand her motivations, he might do a little digging on the men she’d killed. “You just be ready for this afternoon. Don’t let me down, sergeant.”

“Never, sir,” she said and snapped off a perfect salute. It was ruined by the wide grin she shot him, and his glare only caused her grin to grow wider. So he turned around and walked to the cell door, and he didn’t hesitate to open the cell door and then immediately close it behind him. He passed the bag of trash to Griggs to get rid of and then started walking towards Lawton’s cell. He’d spent enough time with Belikov; it was time to get the rest of the team leashed, and he needed to get GQ’s team posted around the courtyard before the big team meeting.

**BELIKOV**

“Finish your homework?” Rick asked as he stepped into her cell again. Elya looked up from the file that she had been flicking through for something to do while she waited, Harkness was going to be an interesting person to meet, and met Rick’s eyes. She was surprised that he returned her gaze so easily, considering their history, and she felt her cheek twitch as she held down a smile.

“Yes, I think I have everything I need,” she answered honestly. She had an eidetic memory, another ability that she assumed came with her enhanced eyes, but she was sure that it had never been documented. Why should it? It wasn’t seeing people’s auras or shooting fire from her eyes, so it wasn’t really all that special. Still, being able to remember everything she’d read had been very helpful over the years. Including now. “You realize that if this works, this team dynamic, it will be on accident and with pure dumb luck? There is no way that this can work or be sustained for long.”

“Just now figuring that out, Belikov?” Rick asked and stepped further into the cell. Her door was mostly closed again, except for a thin crack, and she tightened her fingers around the files in her hands while being careful not to damage them in any way. 

“You know, at least with the Army, I could trust the people I was with,” she whispered. She had thought about them, about her former friends, during the long weeks she had spent trapped in the dark. What had they thought? When the news broke about what she had done?

“Then you should have stayed in the Army,” Rick stated simply. Like it could ever be that simple? Her path had been set when she ran through her brothers’ blood to escape her home when she was five, and she didn’t think that she had ever had a choice. She did what had to be done, then kept doing it, until she finally surrendered. 

“Fair enough,” she said quietly before squaring her shoulders. Dwelling on the past would not serve her now. She returned the files to the case that they came in and closed it, and she looked up at Rick with a raised brow. It’d been hours since she had seen him, so it had to be afternoon now. She was assuming that meant it was time for the team to meet. 

“Here, brought you lunch,” Rick said and stepped even closer. He held out a small plastic bag, the Ziploc kind, with two sandwiches squished inside of it. 

“Definitely a let-down from this morning and yesterday. What? I get a bomb in my neck and now I don’t get the good food?” she teased. Despite her light tone and the fact that she had already reached out to take the sandwiches, Rick’s brows pulled down like he was actually upset. “I am teasing, _solnyshko_. Any food is welcome.”

“We got caught up, with the others. Wanted to make sure you ate before I introduce you to the team. Found the bread and peanut butter in one of the guard’s lockers,” he admitted. Elya paused with the peanut butter sandwich just in front of her lips, and she tipped her head back to look up at Rick. 

“Which guard?” she questioned. 

“Dawson.” Rick lowered himself down to sit at the foot of her cot, after pushing his case over to sit between them, and she shifted to face towards him as she took a bite. 

“I like Dawson. He’s nice,” she said around her mouthful. The peanut butter and bread stuck to the roof of her mouth, and Rick cursed under his breath before surging to his feet. He walked to her cell door and stuck his head out to say something, and she heard running feet a moment later. She could hear the low sound of Rick’s voice, followed by another voice that she thought belonged to Griggs, and she hurriedly finished off the first sandwich. 

“Dawson’s nice, huh?” Rick asked as she reached for the second sandwich. He stepped back into her cell, holding onto an orange Gatorade, and her eyes widened a little when he handed it to her. It was cold, unlike the usual room temperature swill that she was allowed to drink, and the seal cracked as Rick twisted the cap off for her. She was holding a sandwich in one hand and a Gatorade in the other, and she could almost convince herself that she wasn’t in a prison. _Almost_. 

“You have no reason to be jealous, colonel. You’re clearly my favorite,” she said and took another long sip. He was being nice to her for a reason, to get her help and to use her, but she was still grateful. So grateful that she used his title instead of a nickname that she knew he hated, for now. His nickname fit too well for her to completely abandon using it. 

“Dawson’s off today. Harkness didn’t handle the transfer well and knocked out a couple of his teeth,” Rick told her. She’d never seen Dawson’s face, but he had never touched her inappropriately or with violence. 

“That’s too bad. He talked when he would come in. Broke up the monotony,” she said and slowly looked around her empty cell. She’d been blind and strapped down, so any little thing had been a welcome reprieve. Dawson had even engaged in conversation with her and hadn’t sounded afraid, like the others. She hoped that he would be okay. 

“Are you ready for this, Belikov?” Rick asked after she had finished off the second sandwich. She drank down half of the Gatorade and then took a slow breath, but she still felt amazed at being able to eat and drink so regularly. 

“You can call me Elya,” she said as Rick picked up the empty sandwich bag. His level look told her that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, and she relented with a quiet sigh. “What happens next?”

“You and I walk out of this cell, without the chains if you promise to behave.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” she said and then grinned. He motioned for her to drink, which she did and then reluctantly passed the still not empty bottle back to him. He screwed the cap on and then placed the bottle on the floor, but she didn’t have time to ask him why before he was speaking again. 

“I’m taking you out first, to the courtyard. There’s another team assigned to this task force, but I think they’re still a little skeptical about the abilities thing.” He had turned to look at her directly, and she could feel herself smiling as their gazes locked. She was going to get to use her abilities? Without fear of being shocked or without being ripped open first?

“What kind of team?” she asked first. 

“SEALs.” They shared the same exasperated look, one that she had exchanged with friends and other fellow soldiers whenever faced with other branches of the military, and it was so nostalgic that some deep part of her mourned for Elinor Bell. 

“What kind of demonstration do you want?” she asked next. 

“Less darkness talk, more fire,” he said and rolled his left shoulder. She actually felt a little guilty about that. She’d only burned him to get him to move out of her way, before she’d really gotten a good look at his core, and she slowly nodded as she thought over what he’d said. 

“I can do that, if you promise not to blow my head off.” She smiled faintly as she thought it, and she thought that he was maybe fighting down a smile as his cheek twitched. 

“You got it, sergeant. Ready?” he asked as he got to his feet. Her head tipped back as she looked at him, and she slowly slipped off the edge of the cot and stood up. She was used to people being taller than her, but Rick towered over her. Her neck was going to get sore from looking up at him. 

“I’d prefer a change, but I guess this will do,” she said and looked down at herself. She had stripped off her orange overshirt so that she was only wearing a thin white tee shirt over a white tank, and the bottoms of her loose orange pants were rolled up to show her bare feet. 

“Show me that you’re trying to help today and I’ll work on getting you some shoes,” Rick promised her. She hadn’t been expecting that, and her smile was completely genuine now as she continued to look up at him. Perhaps a little too genuine with gratitude, because Rick turned around and fully opened her cell door. Griggs and a younger guard were standing outside of her cell, but she didn’t know the younger guard’s name. 

“Belikov,” Griggs said with a forced smile as she stepped outside of the cell behind Rick. It was the first time she had stepped out of the cell without being heavily chained, and she couldn’t stop smiling even as Griggs swallowed nervously and looked between her swinging arms. Rick was completely ignoring them as he looked at the younger guard, who stood up straighter under Rick’s gaze. 

“Put my case back with my things and don’t touch Belikov’s Gatorade. If it gets moved, I’ll hold you responsible,” Rick snapped out. The young guard practically tripped over himself as he hurried into her cell, and he returned a moment later with Rick’s case held in his arms and immediately turned to walk away. So Rick called out, “Bring Belikov another Gatorade!”

“We got all the colors,” Griggs helpfully added. Rick nodded at the head guard and then looked down at her. 

“You got a favorite color?” Rick asked. She raised her brow as she let a little bit of heat creep into her eyes, and Rick’s chin tipped upwards as he yelled loud enough for the retreating guard to hear. “Make it a red one!”

“Yes, Colonel Sir!” the young guard yelled back. MacDonald! She recognized his voice, and the shaky tone definitely matched the clammy hands that had helped her to sip at water after she was first strapped down. Before they started releasing her periodically so that she could eat. 

“Come on, Belikov,” Rick said and reached out for her arm. The hold was tight without leaving bruises, and she easily sped up her steps to keep even with Rick’s much longer strides. On her other side, Griggs marched while glancing over at her with disbelieving eyes. 

“How’s your day going, Griggs?” she asked after a moment. The head guard laughed, loud and unrestrained, and then abruptly stopped as Rick looked over at him.

“Great, it’s going great, Belikov, thanks for asking,” he said quickly. She really hoped that she could get friendly with at least one of her teammates, because she was really getting tired of only being addressed by her surname.

**EDWARDS**

GQ was standing alone in the courtyard, because his team had been posted around the walls that lined the courtyard. They had all been briefed on the metahumans, and GQ thought he understood what Rick was trying to accomplish by bringing them all together. A team only worked if they knew each other, but he wasn’t sure how this team was going to work. Especially after looking over their files. These people weren’t just criminals. There were no misunderstandings or bad breaks. Each and every one of them were murderers, and he had a feeling that they were all psychotic as well. None of them were Superman, looking to help out the ordinary humans. They had used their abilities for the worst possible reasons, and that was assuming that their abilities were exactly as described.

The single door leading into the courtyard opened, and a small woman stepped out. Rick followed immediately behind her, and the woman appeared even smaller next to the tall commander. Long brown hair framed a pale face, which was tipped up towards the sky as Rick used the hold on her arm to continue to march her forward. He recognized the face as easily as he had recognized the name, and he was surprised that Rick had decided to escort her through the prison without chains. He was surprised that Rick would have anything to do with the woman at all, after she had killed his last team. Before he could think on it any more, Rick walked the woman right up to him and then stopped them both. 

“Lieutenant Edwards, this is Eleanora Belikov,” Rick introduced. The woman’s eyes narrowed up at Rick for a moment and then swung around to look directly at him, and GQ refused to shift under her dark eyes. 

“I prefer to be called Elya, but I assume that is too familiar for our working relationship. I suppose you will call me Belikov as well?” she asked him. There was a slight accent coloring her words, Russian according to the file, and her head tilted to the side as she studied him and waited for his reaction. Instead of answering her, he turned to look at Rick. 

“Thought she’d be bigger,” he admitted. She had killed so many people, seemingly without effort, but she didn’t look very powerful. Small and slim, pale and bruised, but with supposed metahuman abilities capable of killing whole mercenary teams. 

“Haven’t you heard?” His eyes moved back to her, and something cold moved down his spine as she slowly smiled. “Size doesn’t matter, lieutenant.”

“Belikov.” Rick’s tone was a sharp warning, and her smile faded as she looked up at Rick. Something passed between them that GQ couldn’t read and then Belikov was looking up at him again. 

“Apologies, lieutenant. I’ll keep the joking to a minimum.” She actually sounded apologetic, and he cracked a smile as he continued to look at her. 

“Surprised you still have a sense of humor, after being here,” he said honestly. He’d seen some miserable places, and Belle Reve was ranked high on the list. Before Belikov could say anything else, Rick tightened his grip on her arm and recaptured her attention. 

“Remember what we talked about?” Rick asked her. GQ’s eyes moved over her face, and he noticed the differences between the picture in her file and the woman standing in front of him. She was paler, face less filled out, and there were bruises lined high across her cheekbones. 

“I remember. You sure they won’t shoot me?” she asked Rick. 

“Listen up!” Rick yelled loud enough for GQ’s entire team to hear, and GQ watched the way that Belikov scanned the perimeter and the heavily armed SEALs posted on the walls. “Belikov is going to give a little demonstration! So no one panic!”

“Very reassuring,” Belikov said with a pointed look at Rick. He just shrugged and then looked ahead, and GQ straightened up a little as the taller man met his eyes and then lifted one side of his mouth in a smile. 

“You wanted to know if it was all real, and Belikov agreed to a demonstration. Nothing too big,” Rick said and looked down at her. 

“Best behavior, I know.” When Rick just continued to look down at her, Belikov raised a brow and then smiled. “You might want to let go, colonel. I’d hate to accidentally burn you.”

“Careful, Belikov,” Rick said and let her go. He moved to stand next to GQ, and they both watched as Belikov took a step backward. 

Her eyes closed as she took in a deep breath, and her eyes opened as she exhaled. For a moment, GQ thought it was all a hoax after all. Just some criminals hyping themselves up, until he saw a light flickering in Belikov’s eyes. He wanted to lean closer to get a better look, but he didn’t have to. She started to smile as her eyes began to glow, pure red, and the color was bright enough to spill out and add color to her face. She raised one hand as she continued to smile, and his own eyes widened as her pale skin was suddenly engulfed in flames. Fire danced across her fingers and drifted down her palm, but it stopped before reaching her bruised wrists. Her fingers spread apart to show much control she had over the fire, because the flames clung to her fingers so that she could peek one glowing eye between them. 

“I have complete control over my fire, and it does not harm me,” Belikov explained. She looked away from them so that she could watch the way that the fire crawled up her arm, and the flames slipped across the sleeve of her tee shirt without burning the fabric. 

“Full extent?” GQ asked. 

“Unknown,” Rick answered. 

“Permission to give a slightly bigger demonstration?” Belikov asked and looked directly at Rick. 

“Granted,” Rick told her. 

Belikov tipped her head back as she raised both arms, and the fire quickly spread to cover her. The only thing that GQ could see through the flames was the glowing red of her eyes, and he thought he heard her laugh before the fire shot upwards. His right foot moved backwards as his head snapped back to watch as the flames swirled up towards the sky, and he realized that the fire was contained in a carefully controlled tunnel that reached higher than the prison. Then, just as quickly, the fire retreated. Disappeared completely to show Belikov still standing in front of them, exactly as she had been before the fire, but there was a little bit of a flush showing in her pale cheeks as dark eyes looked away from the sky and across at them. 

“I’ve missed being able to do that,” she said quietly. 

“Don’t get used to the feeling, Belikov,” Rick said and leveled a look at her. Her head tipped to the side, studying the colonel, before she dipped her chin in understanding. 

“Of course not, sir,” she said in that same quiet tone. Then she turned to look at him again, and GQ realized he was looking for traces of red in her dark eyes. “Was that demonstration sufficient, lieutenant?”

“It’ll do,” he heard himself say. 

“Get her seated, Edwards. I’ll start on the rest of them,” Rick commanded. He walked off before anyone could say anything else, and Belikov twisted around to watch until Rick had stepped back inside the prison. Then she turned back to face him and smiled again. 

“Which seat is mine?” she asked and tilted her head to the side. GQ reached out to take her arm, and he was surprised at the temperature of her skin. His hand easily wrapped around her bicep, and the skin under his palm was warmer than average but didn’t feel as burning hot as he’d thought. He was also surprised at how easily Belikov moved, quick steps to keep up with him, as he walked over to a ring of chairs that had been set up. 

_“This is fucked up,”_ he thought as he pushed Belikov into a chair. The chairs were purely metal, fully uncomfortable, and he bent to lock Belikov into the chair. Cuffs went around her ankles and wrists, and she looked up to meet his eyes as he wrapped a chain around her middle and finished locking her in. 

“I’m starting to think that this team is untrustworthy,” she whispered. 

“It’s because you are,” he replied and straightened up. Belikov relaxed in her chair, somehow, and he stood back to stand a little behind her chair. 

Several minutes later, the courtyard door opened and several guards spilled out. Guns were trained on the prisoner, but Rick was the only one actually holding onto the guy. As they stepped out into the sunlight, the prisoner’s head snapped back and gave him his first actual look. _Harkness_. He was almost as tall as Rick and broader, but Rick was still able to propel him forwards and keep him moving. Raised voices rang out across the courtyard, Harkness was saying something that was clearly upsetting one of the guards, but all sound stopped after Rick snapped at them. The colonel marched Harkness over to the circle of chairs and pushed him into a chair across the circle from Belikov, and two of the guards dropped down to secure him to the chair. Harkness ignored them though and looked across at Belikov. 

“Who do we have here?” Harkness asked as his eyes looked Belikov over. 

“Elya Belikov,” she answered. GQ couldn’t see her face, but her tone was light enough that he assumed she was smiling. 

“Belikov, Belikov, Belikov…why do I know that name?” Harkness looked at Belikov and then up at Rick, and his body pushed against his restraints as he started to laugh. “You’re the Army girl who killed all those soldiers!”

“I only killed the corrupt ones, and they were technically ex-military,” Belikov corrected. He’d heard rumors about that, about how all the people that Belikov had killed had been guilty of their own crimes, but he usually tried not to listen to military gossip and rumors. 

“And who’s the pretty boy? Toy soldier bodyguard?” Harkness asked. GQ had heard much worse about his looks from all kinds of people, so his expression didn’t shift at all as the criminal’s eyes slowly raked over him. 

“Careful, stranger. He might be pretty, but Lieutenant Edwards is a SEAL and probably has the clearance to shoot us if we misbehave,” Belikov said and then twisted her head to the side to smile up at him. Then she winked where none of the others could see before facing forwards again towards Harkness. 

“Who’s misbehavin’? I’ve been good all day,” Harkness said and grinned. 

“You bit Davey,” one of the guards reminded him. Harkness was fully locked into his chair now, and Rick took a step forward before Harkness could attempt to defend himself or say anything else. 

“If he talks too much, gag him,” Rick instructed and then turned around. 

“He can’t hear the safeword if I’m gagged!” Harkness called out. He slumped down in his chair once the guards walked off, and GQ could hear Belikov starting to hum quietly under her breath. 

The next several minutes were a repeat of the process with Harkness. Lawton was brought out next, and the man kept running his mouth up at a stone-faced Rick while he was chained to his chair. They brought out Quinn next, and she had a laugh that caused his spine to straighten a little. There was something off with all of them, but Quinn was the one who worried him the most so far. Because Belikov had been right. Size really didn’t matter, and he wasn’t going to underestimate the woman. Even if she did thank the guards for strapping her into her chair. Santana was completely silent as he was pushed into his chair and secured, and he watched Belikov’s head tilt as she studied the other metahuman with fire abilities. Jones was wheeled out last, and GQ actually felt his eyes widen a little as he got his first look at the man that looked more like a crocodile. He quickly schooled his expression though and didn’t react when Jones let out a deep growl as he was locked into his own chair. 

“Alright, people, listen up!” Rick called out. All of the metahuman criminals were now seated in the circle, with Rick standing next to him, and Belikov had to twist her neck to look over her shoulder to see them. “It’s time for a team meeting!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My initial plan was to include the team meeting in this chapter, but the chapter was getting a little long so I decided to end it here. So the next chapter will have the team meeting each other. Also, this shows how this story is different from the movie. Instead of everyone meeting and then being dropped into their first mission five seconds later, they’re going to actually get to know each other. Thank you for reading.


End file.
